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A warm welcome for ASEF’s new management team

Published on 05 Feb 2013

Members of the diplomatic corps, representatives from partner organisations in Singapore, think tanks, research and educational institutions, warmly welcomed the Asia-Europe Foundation’s (ASEF) new management team Ambassador ZHANG Yan, the 6th Executive Director, and Mr Karsten WARNECKE, the 6th Deputy Executive Director. The welcome reception was held at ASEF’s premises on 10 January 2013.

Ambassador Roland VAN REMOORTELE, ASEF Governor for Belgium and Chair of the ASEF Board of Governors (BoG) 2013, opened the reception with his welcome remarks. On behalf of all members of the ASEF BoG, Ambassador VAN REMOORTELE extended his best wishes to the new team. He assured all present that the new management will receive full support from the Board in taking forward the mission of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) mandate.

Ambassador ZHANG thanked all ASEM members, the Board as well as ASEF’s partner organisations and friends for their continuous support and cooperation over the past 15 years. “I would like to specifically enhance ASEF’s communication and outreach activities and ensure that ASEF makes value-added contributions towards peace and development in Asia and Europe,” said Ambassador ZHANG. He welcomed the representatives from the diplomatic missions of Bangladesh, Norway and Switzerland to the ASEF family. These three countries are the newest members in the ASEM process since November 2012.

“ASEF can only continue to deliver its high quality products sustainably through the generous and timely financial contributions of its members,” emphasised Mr WARNECKE during his speech. “ASEF does not produce ‘big bang’ firework-like events to be marvelled at by the masses, but its programs are rather like strings of small firecrackers stretching out into many directions and reaching out to many people on the ground level,” he concluded.